By Cindy Yin
The proportion of students achieving the top band in the toughest maths and English subjects has increased, and median marks in some HSC STEM subjects have also risen, as revealed in a preliminary scaling report released by the University Admissions Centre.
Thirty-four per cent of English extension 2 students received the top band mark of 90 per cent or higher, up five percentage points from the previous year. English advanced and English extension 1 also showed increases, at one percentage point each.
The portion of students who received the top band in mathematics extension 1 and 2 also increased, up by one and two percentage points respectively.
Angela Thomas, director of teaching and learning at independent school Kincoppal-Rose Bay previously told the Herald of students reaping the benefits of challenging themselves with more rigorous courses.
“In the extension courses, not only your high but also your middle-ability students do very well. The impact on their corresponding 2 unit course is substantial. If you track them with their similar peers who don’t do extension, they do better,” Thomas said.
Grace Costigan from St Columba’s Catholic College topped the state in English Extension 2.Credit: James Brickwood
“If you keep extension 1 maths for a long time, it’s impacting positively on 2 unit. Even if they drop it, 2 unit feels easy.”
Of the 57,194 students who received an ATAR this year, 17.8 per cent scored 90 or above, and 35.5 per cent had at least 80. The median ATAR this year was 71.55, up by half a percentage point from last year.
For the third consecutive year, the median mark for physics remained steady at 76. The chemistry mark also was unchanged, at 76. Median marks increased between one and two percentage points for biology, mathematics advanced, and both mathematics extension courses.
For many humanities subjects such as business studies, English advanced, English extension 1, and English extension 2, marks remained steady from last year. Economics, modern history, ancient history and English standard increased by one to two percentage points. Geography decreased from 78 to 76.
Warren Song, who topped the state in extension 2 mathematics.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
“It is to be expected that the patterns of HSC marks will change from year to year, reflecting differences in student achievement against the published standards in individual courses,” chair of the technical committee on scaling, Associate Professor Rod Yager, said in the report.
The NSW Education Standards Authority determines students’ HSC marks, which UAC then converts to a scaled mark indicative of a student’s position in the course if all 74,291 HSC students had completed that course.
The subjects with the highest median HSC marks, excluding languages, were dance (84), music 1 (84), mathematics extension 2 (87), and music 2 (87).
The average scaled mark for all HSC subjects is about 25 per unit, with few courses having a scaled mark higher than 35. The highest median scores, as for last year, were in mathematics extension 2 (43.4), Latin continuers (41.3), and Latin extension (42.7).
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